(The Age - Australia) Christopher Hitchens - There is a civil war raging within the Muslim world, where many believers do not wish to live under sharia. This war has been at an incandescent pitch in Algeria for more than a decade. It is smouldering but still toxic in Iran, in Egypt, among the Palestinians, and now in some of the major cities of the West. But the extremist and fundamentalist side in that war has evolved a new tactic. By exporting the conflict and staging it in Europe and America, it hopes both to intimidate and impress those who are wavering. Paradoxically, the world is a less dangerous place as a consequence of September 11, 2001. Until that day, we had been suffering severely from "under-reaction" to the most lethal threat to our civilization. We are on the "right" side of this civil war in one way, because we have no choice. It is impossible to compromise with the proponents of sacrificial killing of civilians, the disseminators of anti-Semitic filth, the violators of women, and the cheerful murderers of children.
2002-09-06 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive